An In-Depth Look at Reiserfs - page 7

Included in the Linux kernel

January 22, 2001

By
Scott Courtney

A lot of people are very happy that Reiserfs is being added to
the standard Linux kernel. Instead of being a separate, complex
process that has to be done on a complete and working system,
Reiserfs becomes a part of the normal installation process, just
another option that can be selected in your favorite distribution's
install tool.

The fast crash-recovery of journaled filesystems, such as Reiserfs,
makes Linux more friendly toward novice users. I have seen new
users, when faced with a system that sat for a minute or more at
the "checking local filesystems..." message, decide that the
machine is completely hung when in fact it's just very, very busy.
They instinctively reach for the power switch or reset button, a
habit that was probably acquired under Windows. OUCH! There is
not much worse than killing power during a filesystem check, and
if you didn't have disk corruption before, you probably do now!
So a journaled filesystem makes Linux behave in a more intuitive
way and makes it more forgiving of mistakes like accidentally
hitting the power switch or reset button. And, let's face
it, even advanced users don't enjoy waiting ten minutes for their
systems to reboot.

Having world-class journaled filesystems in Linux also makes it
more enterprise-ready for corporate deployments. We all know how
seldom Linux crashes if properly installed, but in a major data
center application even a few minutes of downtime once a year
may be too much, and even a small risk of corrupt filesystems
cannot be tolerated. Journaled filesystems bring Linux to parity
with commercial UNIX-like systems such as Irix and AIX, and this
can only help Linux in the corporate marketplace.

It will take time for the commercial distrubutions to catch up with
the kernel, so that Reiserfs is an integral part of the installation.
Yet it will happen, and when it does Linux will take another leap
forward in usability.

There is, of course, no reason why this benefit is gained only with
Reiserfs. The other journaled filesystems (xfs, JFS, and ext3)
each have their own advantages, and each offers something the others
do not. Reiserfs is the most widely-used right now, and it has the
longest track record in the Linux world. Both xfs and JFS are Linux
versions of proven commercial filesystems (on Irix and AIX,
respectively) but they are still considered beta quality in their
Linux incarnations, and their development teams still recommend
against using them for production systems. ext3 simply adds the
journaling capability to regular ext2, and as such it is less
disruptive and potentially less risky -- but it is still called
a beta. Hopefully, all four of the journaled filesystems will
eventually be part of the standard kernel, letting distribution
vendors and users choose the right one for their individual
needs.